Trump is about to drive America's largest nail maker out of business

Republicans have been warning the White House all year that Trump’s reckless trade war is going to hit red states hard, with real job losses, and the evidence is pouring in.

America’s largest nail manufacturer, Mid-Continent Nail, located in a Missouri county that voted 79 percent for Trump, says it is shedding hundreds of jobs and will likely have to shut down by Labor Day.

The company, which produces half the nails manufactured in the U.S., uses imported material to produce the carpentry nails, and since Trump slapped a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum imports, the company has had to boost its prices. When they did that, sales immediately plummeted.

The company recently laid of 60 of its 500 employees and expects to lay off another 200 in the coming weeks.

One of the company’s three plants in Popular Bluff, Missouri, has already been shuttered.

“It’s not just us. There will be many, many companies that will pay a price for this,” George Skarich, Mid-Continent Nail’s vice president of sales and marketing, told the Washington Post. “I’m disappointed in Trump. We didn’t see this coming.”

Skarich pointed out that his company is struggling to compete with much cheaper nails from China, thanks to the trade war driving up the cost of business with his trade war.

“The Chinese get a pass, and we pay a price,” Skarich added. “Trump ran on jobs and making America great again, but he is making a decision that may help big steel, but it hurts downstream businesses like ours who employ a heck of a lot more people than steel does.”

Incredibly, Trump’s base of voters could continue to pay the highest tariff cost, as farmers and manufacturers in red states are poised to suffer.

And that is by design. When Trump announced unnecessary tariffs on longtime trading allies, those allies responded by targeting products produced in red states, in hopes of inflicting political pain on Trump.

That’s why European trading partners quickly singled out Harley-Davidson, the all-American brand based in Wisconsin.

And that’s why Harley-David, facing retaliatory tariffs from Europe, announced on Monday that it will be sending U.S. jobs overseas because of the huge hit it’s taking, thanks to Trump.

According to Harley-Davidson, the tariffs would cost the company an additional $2,200 for each motorcycle it built in the U.S. and then exported to Europe.

So Harley-Davidson is moving production of those bikes to unspecified international plants in order to avoid the Trump tax.

There’s going to be a lot more fallout from Trump’s shortsighted trade war, and his base could pay the highest price.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.